Monday, May 23, 2022

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: The Bourne Legacy

 


This movie was a mostly failed attempt to expand the Bourne universe beyond Matt Damon's character when Damon did not want to return for another movie. Of course, Damon eventually came back to the character and the spin-off was pretty much relegated to the dust bin of history.

The Bourne Legacy takes place at the same time as the previous film, The Bourne Ultimatum. Jeremey Renner stars as Aaron Cross who is a member of a black ops program called Operation Outcome whose subjects are genetically enhanced. Cross is stationed in a remote outpost in Alaska, and after the Treadstone operation is burned by Bourne, the government starts eliminating all traces of it and Operation Outcome, which means trying to take Cross out. Of course, that does not go to plan and what follows from there is pretty similar to the prior installments of the franchise.

Opinions on the quality of the movie seem to vary a lot. I think it was pretty good, but not great. It kept faithful to the original movies, yet was not totally derivative. That said, the chases and the whole feel of the government trying to track down a rogue agent were very much the same as the prior movies. It did have a great cast including Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, and Oscar Isaac, and had clips of Damon, Albert Finney, and Joan Allen.

The movie looks and sounds very good in the HD format and there are a lot of extras. Those include a commentary track on the movies by the directors and members of the production crew. Then there are deleted scenes and several featurettes that run from just under two minutes to almost eight minutes. All in all, about an hour's worth of extras (give or take) separate from the commentary track.

Overall, the movie was a good attempt at expanding the Bourne Universe. I think Renner, Weisz, and Norton did a good job as the leads and would have liked to have seen additional movies with their involvement, even with Cross and Bourne teaming up. Chances are, that is not going to come to pass and this is going to be a one-off movie, even if Damon decides to do another movie after "Jason Bourne" which is becoming more unlikely as time goes by.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.